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Thursday, June 29, 2017

Alexander Mercouris: Assessing a Murder Case Against Putin

The first accusations against Putin that I know of is the Litvinenko case in the UK. From there things just got worse. Before his death Litvinenko spoke about how he was going to blackmail people, but this was ignored in the public enquiry which wasn't really a trail, as there was no jury or barristers defending the accused, nor was there was no right of appeal. Apparently, the British Government is embarrassed about the trail.

This analysis shows why the Litvinenko Inquiry was a farce and why its report is in the end worthless.The Judge who headed the Inquiry was obsessed with proving the Russian state murdered Litvinenko. In order to prove what he always believed he threw legal procedure out of the window and interpreted the evidence how he wanted.In the end even he could not prove that the Russian state murdered Litvinenko, which is why he could only say they “probably” did.In reality the facts – if looked at objectively – show the Russian state almost certainly did not murder Litvinenko and played no part in his death.The Inquiry and its report actually say more about the pathological hostility to Russia of some sections of the British establishment than they do about the Litvinenko case.The first point to grasp about the Public Inquiry that has now delivered its verdict in the Litvinenko case is that it should never have happened at all.The second point is that Inquiry’s decision that the Russian authorities were “probably” behind Litvinenko’s murder is unsustainable and makes no sense.The Public Inquiry that has now delivered its verdict in the Litvinenko case has thrown all this out of the window.There was no jury.Part of the evidence was secret and the defendants and their lawyers were denied sight of it. Some of the witnesses gave their evidence to the Judge in secret and their identities were not disclosed to the defendants.Since technically it was not a trial and the Public Inquiry is not a court there is no right of appeal.Since the defendants – Lugovoi and Kovtun – were denied sight of part of the evidence, they refused to take part. The judge who tried the case – Sir Robert Owen – commented at length in his judgment about their refusal to take part, but failed to state the reason for it.The trial nonetheless proceeded in the absence of the defendants though that is almost unprecedented in Britain. Moreover no lawyers were appointed to represent their interests in their absence as it is perfectly possible to do, and as happens from time to time in other kinds of proceedings.The result is that the evidence of what we must call the prosecution went entirely unchallenged.Moreover since what happened was technically speaking not a trial but a Public Inquiry, the Judge felt free to look at evidence that was not produced to the court, including especially the possible evidence of potential witnesses who did not attend the court, but which was provided to him at second hand, whilst engaging in all sorts of speculations on the evidence that he would not have been able to engage in in a proper trial.Needless to say any notion that the guilt of the accused had to be proved beyond reasonable doubt went out of the window.https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/27/assessing-a-murder-case-against-putin/